MISD Suicide Prevention Week

Published 11:51 am, Tuesday, September 8, 2015

- Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, with one suicide occurring on average every 12.8 minutes.

- Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year olds.

- The elderly make up 14.1 percent of the population but comprise 17.5 percent of all suicides.

- Approximately 1,02 million Americans attempt suicide each year.

- It is estimated that 5 million living Americans have attempted to kill themselves.

- Every year in the United States, more than 21,100 men and women kill themselves with a gun; two-thirds more than the number who use a gun to kill another person.

- An estimated 4.8 million Americans are survivors of suicide of a friend, family member, or loved one.

Note: MISD Crisis Counselors are available to discuss these and other facts surrounding suicide.

Suicide prevention has been at the forefront of our thoughts for the past several years. The Midland ISD Guidance and Counseling Department continually strives to find techniques and strategies to meet the needs of students who are struggling with suicidal thoughts. We feel it is of the utmost importance for MISD staff to recognize the signs and symptoms of suicide and depression; therefore, all MISD employees participate in a one-hour online training from Mental Health America. Furthermore, all employees are also given preventative information on suicide by their campus counselors. Training our employees is our foundation for suicide prevention at the campus level, and we continue to build upon that by educating our students and our community through evidence-based training and practices.

We currently use the Signs of Suicide prevention program with all of our seventh-graders, ninth-graders, all high school students enrolled in health class, as well as all students enrolled in our alternative campus. This program allows us to raise awareness, educate and screen our students for common behavioral and mental health disorders and suicide. With the use of this program, we are providing tools for educators to help youth identify the signs and symptoms of depression, likelihood of suicide and self-injury in themselves and their peers.

We also provide a one-hour training to community groups or agencies called QPR. QPR stands for Question, Persuade and Refer -- three steps anyone can learn to help prevent suicide. Just like CPR, QPR is an emergency response to someone in crisis and can save lives. QPR is the most widely taught, evidence-based gatekeeper training program in the United States.

The work of our school counselors may be the only mental health treatment that some students ever receive in their life, and our counselors take this job very seriously. According to the American School Counselor Association, research indicates 20 percent of students are in need of mental health services, yet only one out of five of these students receive the necessary services. Therefore, we know that we have to find ways to keep ourselves up-to-date with the most current therapeutic practices and strategies to best work with our students.

Our community has played an instrumental part in providing this training through multiple grants we have received over the last few years. One of the projects we are currently working on is a partnership with the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide. This consultant will be helping us to conduct a city-wide readiness assessment for suicide prevention, provide education, training and programs, and then continue to help us with implementation.

One more very exciting project that we have coming up is the First Permian Basin Mental Health Conference, which is planned for Jan. 29 and 30. The first day of this conference will be geared toward mental health professionals, to provide them with a focus on treatment of suicidal clients, and related conditions such as self-injury and trauma. We are very excited to announce that the leading face of suicide research, Thomas Joiner, will be a keynote and a presenter on the first day of our conference. The second day of our conference will be focused on community members and other professionals, such as teachers, parents, clergy, community agencies and anybody in our community who feels interested or touched by suicide prevention.

Our two-day keynote speakers will be Eric Hipple, a former NFL player who lived through the suicide of his 15-year-old son, and his own depression, and Maureen Underwood from the Society of the Prevention of Teen Suicide. We would like to invite all community members and mental health professionals to come join us at our conference to learn more about suicide and suicide prevention.